First of all, the platforms. The Wii U seems like the best fit for Batman 2, because the Gamepad gives you the neato second screen. In this version, you can’t put the second player on the second screen, but you can have a character switcher in levels, a godsend in free play levels. In the hub meanwhile you have the most powerful tool, a map with location pinpointing.
I think this was the first Lego game to do the “massive hub” thing, and it’s really great! The amount of stuff to do makes up for the levels, which are generally short and few in number. You also get to traverse it really quickly if you want, with vehicles and flying heroes (mostly the latter), to then drop down anywhere and collect some stuff. The map really helps this process, just roaming around and finding things.
On the other hand, iOS once again seems the worst (but cheapest, hence me choosing it) platform for the game. You have the dodgy touchscreen controls, the massive file size on your device, and worst of all the microtransaction garbage. From what I’ve read, the iOS port has less stud multiplier bonuses, which I suspect is a cheap way to inflate the value of studs, and hence to encourage you outright buying things with real money rather than playing the game. It also throws up ads for its own DLC between levels. Blegh.
As for comparing the two platforms, well as expected the handheld version has much simpler models and graphics, which is not always bad. In this case, all the lighting effects and rain and stuff on the console gives a final product which is overly dark and laggy. The smaller one avoids this problem with level elements that stand out more against the backgrounds, and a constant perspective rather than a dodgy player-controlled camera. Sure there’s less detail but I preferred the more basic look.
Of course, the camera is only in effect in the hub. An annoyance is the shift in controls and how the game plays between hub and levels, it makes it less seamless. More seamly, you could say. On the other hand, the handheld one has no hub at all, apart from the Batcave! Just levels, which as I said are short and few. There’s an arena mode to pad it out a bit but I feel the hub really is the whole of the game and without it, the small version really suffers in terms of content. It does make in-level collectibles more worthwhile as you get characters that way, but then you don’t get to play around with those characters as much, especially as everything is so expensive.
So I’d say the console version wins out, due to the fun we had dicking around Gotham City. The character choice is also worse in the console one (without DLC anyway, which is not actually present in the Wii U version), but I still enjoyed what was available. Hawk Girl, Martian Manhunter, and so on. Although it has the usual bugs and crashes, it’s still in that “old-style” Lego type thing where it’s not as integrated in the license’s world, so it feels more Lego-y, and it’s more wacky… I can’t really explain it but it made me feel nostalgic for Lego Star Wars in a way the LOTR and Harry Potter ones didn’t. So that’s Lego Batman 2, and we already have the Hobbit to go on with, so on to more Lego! Oh, also this is the first one we’ve bothered to get 100% for a while so that should tell you something.